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An angel indeed, should he have been to have won friendship there he an Americano a "heretico" for in this far corner of the earth fanaticism was as fierce as in the Seven-hilled City itself during the gloomiest days of the Inquisition! Mayhap it was as well for Carlos that the sports were now ended, and the fiesta about to close. In a few minutes the company began to move off.

There was even some talk of getting up a volunteer company to assist the soldiers in the pursuit of the heretico assassin, or rather to earn the golden price of his capture. With such a forfeit on his head, it was an enigma how Carlos should be long alive! Roblado sat in his quarters busy devising plans for the capture.

They passed the bill for an additional excise, together with an act for taking away the writ "De heretico comburendo;" another annulling all attainders and acts passed in the late pretended parliament of king James; a third to prevent foreign education; a fourth for disarming papists; and a fifth for settling the estates of intestates.

"Divers false and perverse people," so runs the act De Heretico comburendo, "of a certain new sect, damnably thinking of the faith of the sacraments of the church, and of the authority of the same, against the law of God and of the church, usurping the office of preaching, do perversely and maliciously, in divers places within the realm, preach and teach divers new doctrines, and wicked erroneous opinions, contrary to the faith and determination of Holy Church.

"Do you know," continued he, striking on a new idea, "the padre don't like the guero family. That's evident from the hints he let drop to-night. We may get this fellow out of the way without much scandal, if the Church will only interfere. The padres can expel him at once from the settlement if they can only satisfy themselves that he is a `heretico. Is it not so?"

Demonio! asesino! ladron! They would all be glad to see him seated in the chair of the "garrote." No "buen Catolico" would have acted as he had done no one but a sinful "heretico" a blood-loving "Americano"! How he would be punished when caught!

"Divers false and perverse people," so runs the act De Heretico comburendo, "of a certain new sect, damnably thinking of the faith of the sacraments of the church, and of the authority of the same, against the law of God and of the church, usurping the office of preaching, do perversely and maliciously, in divers places within the realm, preach and teach divers new doctrines, and wicked erroneous opinions, contrary to the faith and determination of Holy Church.

The abolition of the court of wards, the repeal of the writ De Heretico Comburendo, the Triennial Parliament Bill, the establishment of the rights of the House of Commons in regard to impeachment, the expiration of the Licence Act, and, above all, the glorious statute of Habeas Corpus, have therefore induced a modern writer of great eminence to fix the year 1679 as the period at which our constitution had arrived at its greatest theoretical perfection; but he owns, in a short note upon the passage alluded to, that the times immediately following were times of great practical oppression.